MOOC Student Demographics (Fall 2012)

I report on survey responses from 2,350 students who enrolled in a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org in Fall 2012. The responses represent 41% of the students who completed the course and 2.6% of those who initially enrolled but did not complete it.

Alert: This is an old post. See the new post about the more recent survey here.

This data concerns students who enrolled in the first offering of Computational Investing, Part I in Fall 2012. The MOOC was taught by Tucker Balch of Georgia Tech and delivered via coursera.org. The statistics here are self reported by the students.

The data is from one course only, so it does not represent statistics for MOOCs overall.

The demographics of students in the course are likely affected by affected by the course topic, which is typically taught at the graduate level.

Demographics: Country of Residence

Chart 1: Country of residence of students who completed the course. There were students from over 100 countries participating in the course. This chart reports the percentage of the top 10 participating countries of the students who completed the course.

Chart 2: Country of residence of students who did not complete the course. This chart reports the percentage of the top 10 participating countries of the students who did not complete the course.

Demographics: Participation by residents of non-OECD countries

Membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is considered by some as a measure of economic development. Here we provide statistics regarding those students from OECD and non-OECD states:

26.7% of the students who completed the course live in non-OECD countries (73.3% developed)

40.7% of the students who did not complete the course live in non-OECD countries (59.3% developed).

Demographics: Age

For students who completed the course:

minimum: 17 years old

mean: 35 years old

maximum: 74 years old

For students who did not complete the course:

minimum: 16 years old

mean: 34 years old

maximum: 88 years old

Chart 3: Age distribution of students in the course. This chart reports the percentage of students in 5 year age “bins”.

Demographics: Sex

For students who completed the course:

male: 91%

female: 6%

prefer not to say: 3%

For students who did not complete the course:

male: 88%

female: 11%

prefer not to say: 1%

Demographics: Race

For students who completed the course:

white: 69.8%

black or african american: 1.4%

asian: 18.8%

native hawaiian or other pacific islander: 0.2%

american indian or alaska native: 0.3%

other: 6.7%

prefer not to say: 4.9%

For students who did not complete the course:

white: 56.3%

black or african american: 3.4%

asian: 28.3%

native hawaiian or other pacific islander: 0.3%

american indian or alaska native: 0.2%

other: 7.8%

prefer not to say: 5.1%

Demographics: Highest level of education attained

Chart 4: Highest level of education attained by students in the course. These statistics were self reported by the students.

Participation in online forums

Of students who completed the course:

95.8% read the forums

33.2% posted in the forums

Of students who did not complete the course:

62.4% read the forums

15.2% posted in the forums

Satisfaction with the course by students who completed the course

The students who completed the course were asked “How much do you agree with each of these statements regarding your learning in the course? (Please rate on a scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree).” We report the percentage of students who selected Agree or Strongly Agree below:

Considering everything, the instructor was an effective teacher: 61.1%

For the amount of time I invested in this course, I’m happy with what I learned: 67.5%

The course materials were presented in an engaging manner: 57.0%

I would like to take a more advanced course on this topic: 92.2%

I found the course personally fulfilling: 59.0%

I learned what I was hoping to learn in this course: 42.8%

Satisfaction with the course by students who did not complete the course

Did you find the course useful even though you didn’t complete it? Yes (89.7%)

Completion rates

Enrolled (clicked “sign me up”): 53,205

Watched a video: 53% of those who enrolled

Took a quiz: 26% of those who enrolled

Submitted first homework: 12% of those who enrolled

Completed the course:

4.8% of those who enrolled

18% of those who took a quiz.

39% of those who submitted the first project.

Acknowledgements

Fatima Wirth, Ph.D. assisted with instructional design, and the course was TA-ed by Sourabh Bajaj.